Afternoon Fizz, SPD Edition: Councilmembers Test-Drive Blast Balls, SPD Sued Over Records Violations, and More
1. Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposed new policy on SPD's use of "less lethal" weapons, including blast balls, is moving forward at breakneck speed, with a committee vote scheduled next Tuesday—just one month after the council's public safety committee chair, Bob Kettle, introduced the bill. As we've reported, council members are proposing some changes to the bill that would restore some oversight when SPD uses these weapons, but the bill has moved forward so quickly that the Community Police Commission has not had a chance to weigh in
Kettle's "chair's amendment" to the bill was already circulating by the time the CPC delivered a letter outlining their concerns along with a list of proposed amendments on Wednesday, and it's unclear how or whether the council will incorporate their ideas into a final version of the bill. The CPC is one of three police accountability bodies at the city, and the only one designed to represent communities that could be impacted by police policies.
The CPC wants to restrict the use of blast balls—rubber-clad grenades that have caused serious injuries in Seattle and other cities—to scenarios where "specific information establish[es] an imminent threat of violence against persons or significant property damage which cannot be averted or contained without dispersal of the crowd." In those cases, the CPC's proposed language would require police to direct blast balls "away from people, underhand, at a distance of at least 10 yards."
The CPC is also asking the council to require mutual aid agencies—other police departments SPD calls in during large-scale demonstrations—to abide by SPD's policies and only act at the direction of SPD's incident commander.
In previous discussions about its less-lethal weapons policy, SPD has argued that they can't afford to place restrictions on other police departments, and says their existing "interim policy"—which allows cops to use blast balls for crowd control if they perceive “an imminent risk of physical injury to any person or significant property damage"—is sufficient.
2. Kettle and City Councilmember Rob Saka took a field trip to SPD's Tukwila firing range on Wednesday, where the pair reportedly got a chance to test out blast balls for themselves.
PubliCola was unable to coax out any details about the outing; SPD referred us to council staff, and council staff have not responded to the questions we sent yesterday. Kettle did not respond to a direct voice mail.
Police have an obvious interest in convincing the council that blast balls are a safe, effective way to disperse a crowd. But even in the controlled environment of a testing range, studies have found that blast balls act inconsistently, exploding at different times, skittering erratically along the ground, and shattering into shrapnel in ways that can't be predicted.
We'll have our ears perked next week to see if either council member extolls the virtues or safety of the weapons, which nearly killed a young law student during the 2020 protests against police brutality.
3. The Seattle Times is suing the Seattle Police Department for violating the terms of a 2023 settlement over SPD's practice of "grouping" multiple outstanding records requests into a single request. In the settlement, the city agreed that SPD could only group requests made within eight weeks of each other—a compromise that required SPD's public disclosure division to work on multiple requests from the same person or outlet at the same time, rather than completing one request before moving on to the next. Dealing with request doesn't just delay the release of public information—it also discourages people from filing records requests, since new requests end up at what may be a hopelessly lengthy queue.
PubliCola brought the settlement violations to the Times' attention late last year, when SPD grouped a dozen of our outstanding requests, spanning a period of more than two years, into a single mega-request with a placeholder response date of December 31, 2025. When we pointed out that SPD was violating the settlement, the department's public disclosure officer pointed us to the 2017 policy that allows grouping—the very policy that was supposed to be modified under the settlement.
4. Former police chief Adrian Diaz has been keeping a low profile since December, when Harrell fired him for numerous SPD policy violations related to him carrying on, failing to disclose, lying about, and attempting to cover up an "improper ... intimate relationship" with a woman he hired and promoted.
Throughout his tumultuous final year at the city, Diaz was represented by Ted Buck, an attorney who issued frequent quotable denials to media outlets like KUOW, which reported doggedly on the allegations even as outlets like the Stranger mocked and questioned their coverage, at one point posting, "Remember when KUOW reported that the chief was having sex with his Chief of Staff based on a rumor" on Twitter." (Earlier this week, they dismissed the whole story as one big "yawn").
On Thursday, Buck confirmed he is no longer Diaz' attorney, saying he "assisted with the internal complaints and investigations"—at least one of which is still ongoing— but that "Adrian has other counsel for his potential claims against the city." Those claims include a $10 million tort alleging the city discriminated against Diaz for his sexual orientation. Diaz was demoted in May, but remained on the city's payroll, after several women sued him for sexual harassment and discrimination, and announced he was gay on a right-wing talk show the following day.